Wednesday, October 3, 2012

This Is The Lord's Army? You've Got To Be Kidding Me


THE MINOR PROPHETS SPEAK TO TODAY??  

  JOEL 2:11

 


“These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.”  
1 Corinthians 10:11 NLT
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[STUDY NOTE: What God says and what he does often so contradicts of expectations and preconceived ideas that we miss key information, even key warnings. We must always ask the Holy Spirit to help us see the things to which we may be blind.]
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When the Ninevites invaded Israel, they were God's army. When the Babylonians invaded Israel, they were God's army. When the locusts invaded Israel, they were God's army. Here in Joel God says that the Lord Himself thunders at the head of this army and calls it his army.

When God gathers the instruments of his judgment together to execute punishment upon us, they are his army and he thunders at their head. They may be cruel and bloodthirsty like the Ninevites. They may be natures destroyers like the locusts. They may be a human army or terrorist that make the world tremble and rearrange history. But God is in control. He alone leads them.

True, these instruments of God, these individuals or nations that he gathers as his army for his judgment purposes, may go beyond what he has ordained. They may do things in ways that violate his laws and his creation. He may turn and destroy them for what they have done to us, his children. But when they come they come at his beck and call. His army, carrying out his judgment.

This is so hard for us to see; yet it is written again and again though out the prophets as they describe the events of history. We ask, "How can a good God, a God that loves us, be the one who orchestrates this evil? Surely, it is just his permissive will, not his direct hand. Surely those who wreck havoc upon us, destroy us, are led by their own hearts, their own designs, and God just steps out of the way and let's us have what, by our apostasy or rebellion, comes in the divine order of set in action at the creation." 

But the truth is God is their leader. The truth is he has gathered them together to perform his judgments on and among us. And America is not exception even if that is considered politically incorrect. 

"These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.”

The Lord, the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

A NOTABLE EXCEPTION:

There is a notable exception and we are so focus on End of Time prophecies perhaps this exception has so filtered our reading of the scripture that we are blinded to God's normal.

"13 Then I saw three impure spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14 They are demonic spirits that perform signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty ... 16 Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon."

At the battle of Armageddon immediately preceding the physical return of Christ to earth, the army gathered to destroy God's children is not God's army of judgement upon his children. The are the arm of those who oppose God, gathered together by three impure spirits. In this instance, God does not thunder at their head. He directly intervenes to destroy them.

But again, this is an exception. The details of its occurrence are carefully laid out so that we will not confuse it with the warnings about God's, if you will, lesser days of judgment upon his children. His discipline, his purifying, of those who claim his name.

Don not let the exception blind you to the examples laid out as warnings to us.

QUESTIONS FOR COMMENT AND DISCUSSION:

1.   Do you agree that often we are blind to this truth that God thunders at the head of the seeming evil?

2.   Does God really gather forces of evil to use as armies of his judgment against those who claim his name?

3.   Do we dare say this is happening in our day? 

4.   If yes, is or has it happened in America or the so called Christian Western nations?
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A WORD FOR TODAY:

God thunders at the head of his army.

Joel 2:11
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